


Count to Ten and Breathe

by StarWitness42



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 2.12 tag, Angst, Emotional Trauma, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 16:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11188962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarWitness42/pseuds/StarWitness42
Summary: This is just a little drabble that came to me after watching 2.12.





	Count to Ten and Breathe

He awakes with a scream lodged in his throat, pressing against muscles, blocking his air. And it is like he is drowning again, the final part in a series of days scorched into his memory replaying themselves like a nightmare stuck back in its endless loop.

 

One... two...

 

The panic comes next. The disorienting snap of life that doesn't know where it is, a mind that doesn't know _when_ it is. The past and the present mingling, gnarled roots that tangle through his chest, speeding his heartbeat, coating his skin with sweat.

 

Three... four...

 

He finds air again, but it does not come without a cost. Because air means living, and to live is to remember. To see the images clearly, fully formed without the soft, hazy edges of the dream. To breathe means to accept that you are alive, that you exist, and existence for him has never come without stiff penalties.

 

Five... six...

 

He chokes on that air as if his lungs still want to refuse it, damp sheets twisted around his legs, sweat clinging to his bare chest as fists ball uselessly at his sides and he wonders what happened here while he was gone. Did he sleep in this bed? If he brings the sheets to his face, will they smell differently? Will they bear the scent of a murderer?

 

Seven... eight...

 

There is a presence with him now, a shadow looming in the doorway, unwilling to enter without permission. The words,"I'll take the couch. I just want to make sure you're okay," drifting through his memory as, "Magnus, are you all right?" drifts to his ears. And he wants to reach out, with voice, with arms, with heart, but there are other memories he has to contend with now. In the cell. Unbelieving eyes and forceful hands and it's all... it is all simply too much.

 

Nine...

 

"I am fine, Alexander. Go back to sleep," he says, but even he can tell how wrong his voice sounds, echoing in his ears like explosions. Over and over and over as he thinks of all the ways this could have ended. All the ways _he_ could have ended. And he knows Alec just wants to help. That he feels responsible and simply wants to make things right. But Magnus does not know if right even exists anymore. If there is a way to fix this aside from simply sweeping it away, forcing it into the box that stored his mother's death until the Clave ripped it back out.

 

_Ten_ , he thinks. Count to ten and breathe. But as Alec's shadow disappears, leaving a hole in Magnus' chest, he wonders how he'll ever get the lid to close again. Because it was full before, but now?

 

Now it is overflowing. 


End file.
